2000 AGN JAN 04 I18 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Staff Report re Traffic Impact Fees/Meadow Development Site January 4, 2000 Page 2 marketplace. City staff is in the final stages of compiling its report and recommendation and preparing to submit the results to the City Council for consideration. The subject request was submitted during the early stages of staff's analysis. Staff's approach for addressing the issue was as follows: 1. First, to establish the reasonable traffic impact fees which will be levied upon all similar commercial users in the City. One of our major objectives for revising the fees was to develop a schedule that would eliminate the case-by- case negotiation of traffic impact fees. The revised fee schedule would satisfy the legal requirements for nexus while also acknowledging economic and competitive realities. 2. Second, after establishing fair and reasonable base traffic impact fees for commercial uses, consider the justification for credits based upon prior performance of public improvements with extraordinary community or regional benefits. Base Traffic Impact Fees City staff has developed a comprehensive revision of the traffic impact fee schedule for all land use categories. ` The traffic impact fee was reduced from $128.18 per trip to $93.82 per trip based upon revisions to the project inventory and the trip generation rates. This reflects a 27% reduction in the fee per trip generated. Nevertheless, for commercial projects in particular the computed fee tends to remain well above the average of our major competitors and a significant development impediment. For example, for the project in question the original computed traffic impact fees amounted to approximately $900,000 using current fee schedules. Under the proposed fee schedule (before competitive market adjustments), the traffic impact fee amounted to approximately $200,000. Both of these fees were substantially higher than any of our principal competitors in the marketplace for new commercial development. Consequently, City staff will be proposing that a second adjustment in the traffic impact fee be established for commercial land uses. This adjustment evaluates our competitive positioning and attempts to establish the fee in the mid-range of the field. For the purposes of the immediate assessment, staff determined the cities of Rialto, Fontana, and San Bernardino to be the appropriate field of comparison. Based upon this review, staff will be recommending that the adopted fee schedule be modified to reduce commercial traffic impact fees as illustrated in Exhibit C attached. The modified fee ranges from 18% to 45% of the amount otherwise applicable based upon the